Tech pundits are fond of using the term “inflection points” to describe those rare moments when new technology wipes the board clean, opening up new threats and opportunities. But one might argue that in the past few years what used to be called out as an inflection point might now just be called “Monday.”
If you attended the 2019 Venice Biennale, you might have waited in a long line to see the prize-winning piece “Sun & Sea (Marina),” an opera performance staged by three Lithuanian artists on a sandy faux beach that had been installed in a warehouse.
Nilay Patel, the editor-in-chief of the digital technology publication The Verge, has lately taken to describing theverge.com as “the last Web site on earth.” It’s kind of a joke—there are, of course, tons of Web sites still in existence, including the likes of Facebook.com—but also kind of not a joke.
I recall having breakfast at a hotel in Brussels in 2017 and sitting across from Douglas Coupland, the author of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, the 1991 book that gave my generation a sort of name that was really only a placeholder for a name. I wanted to tell him how much I resented him for this, but I couldn’t muster the courage to be disagreeable.
In recent months, the signs and portents have been accumulating with increasing speed. Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites.
In the summer of 2021, I experienced a cluster of coincidences, some of which had a distinctly supernatural feel. Here’s how it started. I keep a journal, and record dreams if they are especially vivid or strange. It doesn’t happen often, but I logged one in which my mother’s oldest friend, a woman called Rose, made an appearance to tell me that she (Rose) had just died.
THE LAST TIME we featured the 1928 Hollywood Hills, California home of interior designer Mark D. Sikes was in 2016 (see how it looked here). It was the second iteration of the place, we believe? Three years ago, in 2019, the designer embarked on a third redesign that was featured at Architectural Digest that we only discovered now, and quite a lot has changed. New fabrics have been brought in, most notably the blue white Brunschwig & Fils check that ensconces the dining room from floor to ceiling. ...
YES, IT’S TRUE—we rarely feature ultra-modern spaces here at TIG (especially brutalist ones), but there is something about this home in Orinda, California, that drew us in. Built by Faulkner Architects for a couple of environmental scientists and their two sons who relocated from the Oakland Hills to the warmer climate of Orinda, the goal was sustainability, including net-zero energy performance yearly.
THIS INSTALMENT OF 10 IMAGES features the wholesome Instagram photos of Jessie May Snyder, who lives in Costa Messa, California. We're not certain if it's because we've been working so hard this (Dry) January to eat healthy, lower calorie meals, but we find it extremely satisfying to stare at her gleaming refrigerator filled with fruits and vegetables and honey, walnuts and almonds ...
WHILE WE MAY not be the biggest fans of Kanye and Kim Kardashian West, we are very much longtime fans of Axel Vervoordt. In fact, we once wrote a piece about how the Belgian designer and the musician met (How Kanye West met Axel Vervoordt, This Is Glamorous, April 26, 2018) ...
Designer and taste-maker Mark D. Sikes is well known for his love affair with blue and white, which we at...
A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT by way of décor today — a little more casual and carefree at the California home...
MARK D. SIKES studied finance and economics in college, fancying a life in international business. Along the way, he ended...
